Mitt Romney: Tyranny Is Freedom, Sickness Is Health

“Governor Romney’s vision and record of accomplishment on healthcare reform includes utilizing the free market and innovation to get more people covered with private insurance while making care more affordable by reducing the number of free-riders and government regulations that are responsible for holding back the market and driving up costs,” the statement said.

Free-riders? You mean poor people who go to the emergency room, Mitten?

Perhaps someone should tell The Mitten that the people whom he demeans and insults as free-riders are sick people who can’t afford health care and certainly can’t afford insurance.

And wasn’t it The Mitten’s very own Republican President who recently said that everyone has health care in America because all they have to do is go to the emergency room? Why, yes, it was.

As for government regulations ‘holding back the market and driving up costs,’ does The Mitten mean the regulations and rules that are in place to see that hospitals are safe, that doctors adhere to standards of practice, that manufacturers of drugs and equipment operate with at least a modicum of interest in patient safety?

As of July 1, all state residents had to be insured either through government programs or private insurance provided by their employers, subsidized by the state, or driven down in cost through state collaboration with private insurers.

Those lacking coverage on Dec. 31 will lose the personal exemption on their state income tax filing next spring, equal to $219. If they remain uninsured into 2008, they will be taxed up to 50 percent of the cost of the least-expensive private insurance plan – an estimated hit of at least $150 a month.

So, let’s see, if you don’t spend $3600 on a cheap plan – no, wait a minute, that would actually be $5600 because these things have a $2000 deductible you have to pay before you can get any insurance coverage – so if you don’t lay out effectively $466.66 a month for insurance that is likely not going to cover much of anything, the state will slam you with a $150 a month fine, and you still won’t have any coverage.

The mandate is a critical element of the new law, because it aims to stop uninsured “free-riders” from walking into an emergency room and sticking the insured with the bill through higher premiums. Romney likened the provision to the state’s auto-insurance requirement, and pitched it as a matter of personal responsibility when he signed the health bill into law in April 2006.

And the closing quote of the article reads “I’m the only guy who’s got a free-market way to get everybody insured.”

And need we be reminded that The Mitten also arranged the law so that companies that choose not to provide health insurance and have more than eleven employees will have to pay a huge, bank breaking sum of $295 per employee per year as a penalty. That would be instead of the several thousand per employee they would have to pay for insurance. The Lion wonders who thought that up. Chamber of Commerce, perhaps?

This is what Mitt Romney, a Republican conservative, calls the free market. This is what the other Republicans mean when they talk about the free market. Force people to pay money to insurance companies that will provide crappy coverage, if any. And if people refuse to go for the lousy deal, take their money anyway by garnishing their income.

Maybe The Mitten and the rest of the free-marketers talk like this because they know that in a genuine free market where people had to pay or do without, people would be left to die in the street in front of the emergency room. No money, no health care. No money, no life. Die, you ugly little free-rider!

The tyranny of the market’s politicians. That’s the Republican way, and the Conservative way. They want to make it the American way.

8 Responses

Good to see that there is bloglife in Rhode Island. Used to live there, last time in Cranston.

Re: your comments on the debate, dead on, dead on. For contrast, when Sarkozy was running for Pres in France, he had a two hour face-to-face debate with his opponent. A real debate! Real pols really talking to each other about real issues. Boggles the mind, eh?

Adminstrative costs for health insurers are not 20-30%. They are more like 8%. Vanfaasen had a high pay out but it was a retirement package for 32 years of service. I like your blog but when you use figures out of context, you seem like a political canidate.

You got tagged by Akismet as spam. I don’t know why, but I just found it.

Anyway, where did you get the 8% from? Seriously.

As for the ‘retirement package’, sorry, he got paid and paid well I’m sure while he was working. Handing him a multi-million dollar package is ridiculous, and insults and demeans the people who are struggling to come up with the money to pay for health insurance from companies that fight every step of the way to deny coverage.

Did I mention that I’m running for President? As soon as I can find a small country that actually is free and democratic. My campaign fund right now stands at… wait a minute… $8.37… had to check my pocket.